Unidade da Policia Pacificadora (UPP) - The concept

October 2, 2009. The 2016 summer olympic games are awarded to Rio de Janeiro. And so begins the urge for security. The city has a pretty bad reputation, the war between the drug gangs is making headlines all over the world. It's time for peace. But as we already saw in the last post, Rio's definition, or at least picture, of peace is quite different from our.

Since insecurity rimes here with favela, it didn't take too long for the state governor to come up

with the idea that, with cops controlling favelas, peace would come. Or at least, the city's reputation will change. We don't want to scare potential investors, you know. Oh and it's election time. Convenient.

The project is named Unidade da Policia Pacificadora. It aims at getting the police to be closer to the population, while reinforcing social politics. The idea is to bring peace to territory under the control of drug gangs and improve the social inclusion of the people living in those territories.  The government is investing 15 millions R$ in the police academy, hoping to reach the goal of 60 000 new policemen by 2016. By the end of 2010, 3500 of them should be joining an UPP.

The concept sounds good. Peace, social services and no drug gang. Too bad they choose to describe it as "uma importante arma" - an important weapon - for the state of Rio de janeiro. Guess they just can't get read of the idea that you need a gun to bring peace.

Link: Conceito upp

UPP : Police, pacification and images

Pretty much every month, the police invades and takes over another favela. Gun fights, bullet wounds and dead people. After the fight, the police calls a victory, claims to have gotten rid of the drug gang and decides to stay in the community. In Rio de Janeiro, they call it "pacification". And the next day, in Oglobo, one of the most important newspaper in the country, you can read all about that amazing police operation that set free so many people from the drug gang. They start explaining how wonderful it is to have another armed force, the police, run the community and how thankful for that everyone is. Could be true. The only thing is that I never heard anyone in Rocinha looking forward to that "peace" the police is supposed to bring in. But that's not today's post subject.

After reading a few articles about the UPPs as they are presented by the brazilian press, you can't help but notice the photos illustrating the headlines. See above. There's pretty much always one representing kids and guns half their size. And it always hurts me. It hurts me when they're a bit melodramatic with  a sad-faced kid looking at the camera. It hurts me if they show smiling kids playing next to machine guns. It hurts me those kids are growing up surrounded by guns, no matter what.

It hurts me someone could think peace looks like that.

Images via http://oglobo.globo.com/

Photos from various editions: March 23 2010, April 30 2010 and May 1st 2010 

interchange Rocinha/ Brazil - Sendai/ Japan (visual da Rocinha)

The I2I cinema class always had great success among the kids. And when we got the opportunity of an exchange with a japanese NGO, the cinema class found itself a new project to work on. A project to be shared and seen on the other side of the world... The kids were obviously really excited and the project took off quite easily: 
The five english classes would pick up what they would like to show about Rocinha and present it in english:  The sunday market, Sao Conrado beach, Visual, the samba school Academicos da Rocinha and Tio Lino's art studio were chosen. 
The photo class would walk around Rocinha and take pictures of said selected subjects.
The cinema class would make a film out of the pictures and insert the english comments. 


All the classes got to work on the same project at the same time, which makes it such a special work for everyone. You can watch the Visual (aka the top of the hill) video at the top of that post, with comments from my english class, and check out the other videos here.


A few months later, american volunteer Drew brought even more cinema to Rocinha and the institut. The cinema class had already been going on for a while but Drew brought it to a whole new dimension, bringing digitals cameras and network exposure to Rocinha (he presented his work with the kids on CNN). 
Watch Aline and Ana Luiza presenting you their favorite place in Rocinha: the beauty salon...

Cinema seems to be an amazing vector of opportunity for I2I as former cinema teacher Ana Paula is now going to take 3 of our students to Italy in july in order for them to assist to a film festival she's currently working for. 

i2i Break - Guerreir@s do Ritmo

Check out the amazing work of our break dance teacher, Marina, aka Nurse Boogie, with the kids from I2I. The group is called Guerreiros do Ritmo and they had the amazing opportunity to show their moves in a few Hip Hop context all over Rio and check out professionals battles. It's a whole new culture, a whole new universe they got to discover through a dance class.

The video was recorded in Rocinha, on a very bright orange colored football field.

Drew, american volunteer in charge of a cinema project, did the filming and editing.

Music by K-Os - B-boy Stance

28 Millimetres - Mulheres Da Providencia

Last year was the Ano da França no Brasil and it was a great excuse to discover new, yet unknown in Brazil, artists.

French artist JR's exhibition 28 millimetros at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil was the one that fascinated me the most. Because it was beautiful. Because it was looking at the favela straight through JR's eyes. And because what he saw and decided to show us was the "Comunidade", the community, that particularity that makes a favela way more than just a slum.

He choose to work in Rio's oldest favela, Providencia, and used the walls of the favela to show giant portraits of women from the community. The result is an amazing visual, giant eyes and smiles looking at you as you drive by the favela.

He didn't stop there and used the whole favela as an exhibition hall, putting up pictures of kids and residents all over the wall, pictures that do not just show but illustrate the life of the community. As if you were looking at memories, moments that already happened there....

JR's work wasn't just about taking pictures. He met the residents, talk to them, discovered their way of life and its difficulties. He got a glimpse of Rio's government amazing politic when it comes to the favelas: Putting up a renovating project that, in fact, will only concern the few houses you can see from the street, leaving the poorest families live in made-out-of-wood houses. JR recounts in the 28 millimetros book how he met one of those families, whose house at the top of the hill was built in the 60's.... After talking to the community, JR's crue offered to rebuild the house in rough-stone.
I visited the original house, used for a video installation for the exhibit. You wouldn't imagine what it's like. And I definitely cannot imagine a family of 9 nine living in there.

JR's wonderful work moved me and showed the favela as I know and love it. No guns, no drugs... just smiles, kids playing and people laughing. Amazing how, one more time, it takes a foreigner to show the true heart of the favela.
His movie, Women are heroes, is currently being presented at the Cannes festival.

Links:

http://jr-art.net

http://jr.blogs.liberation.fr/photographies

Ponto de Equilibrio - Janela da Favela

Rocinha

Rocinha is by far Rio's most famous favela. Home of many favela tours, she's the easiest one to access and has always been considered the biggest favela in south america,which is not true anymore. She even has her own Wikipedia   page, where you'll find some interesting facts... You'll learn that it is located between Gavea and Sao Conrado, on a hill called "Dois irmaos" or "Two brothers". You'll learn that it's run by a drug gang. You'll learn about police raids and drug selling. But you wont learn anything about its residents and what it's like to live in Rocinha. So let me present you a census realised in the community and publied by the Observatorio de favelas , a brasilian ngo encouraging a reflexion on the future of the favela. You will read a lot about them in those pages as I am a huge fan of their work.

The census was realised in july 2009 in Rocinha and recensed 38 029 buildings for 100 818 residents and a majority of women (51,5%).
Rocinha, according to the census, is also home for 6508 businesses. The unemployement rate is, on my owm french opinion, incredibly low with 7,7% and 23,5% of the questionned people are reportedly currently studying.

People were also asked about their living arrangement's main problems : natural lighting and ventilation came first (41, 8% each), lack of space and humidity were also widely invoked. Just to explain, a favela is basicaly a labyrinth of one meter wide alley-ways. You basicaly needs to keep the light on all the time and can't really expect the fresh air to enter your livingroom...

According to the census, 86% of the buildings are connected to the sewing system. What they don't tell you is that the sewing system in rocinha is an open one, which means that along the street runs the filthiest river you've ever seen.....

Also what a census wont ever tell you is the noise of a favela. Its music blasted all the time, pagode during the day and Funk during the night, it's moto taxis everywhere, people yelling, kids laughing, dogs yapping.... and birds singing.

Getting Started

It took me some time to start this blog and start documenting my experience in Rio de Janeiro - a year exactly. Maybe I needed to learn the language, maybe I needed to know more about the culture, the politic and the way things work in Brazil. Maybe I needed to come close to the end of that first experience to look back at what happened this year, what I learned and what I can now share. I can now, if not understand, at least have my own opinion about the favela and the national politics regarding it.

Janela para favela means “ a window to the favela”. It’s my own point of vue, the point of vue of an outsider, the point of vue of a french woman volunteering in Rio’s biggest community. I do not live in Rocinha, I am not brasilian. I am an outsider in every sense of the word. And as much as I am involve in the community, I look at it with a distance, I observe it and try to understand it with a great passion.

Also, don’t expect me to use the word slum to refer to Rocinha - or any favela for that matter. It sure sticks to the definition but its way more than that : a favela is a “comunidade”, a community. It’s an unbelievable network, it’s a family, it’s a village. It’s solidarity at his best, it’s kids running around, music 24hours a day, mototaxi, vans, a labyrinth of alley-ways... and, indeed, some not so nice things. But we’ll talk about it later.

With the olympics and the world cup coming, Rio is trying to evolve and kill that image of insecurity it is carrying. In that way, I think that last semester, from october the 2nd, 2009 and on, was decisive. From the UPPs (Unidade de Policia Pacificadora) to the rain storm and its 300 victims, through the World Social Forum, the future of the favela is starting to make the news and is soon going to be an issue Rio’s government can’t avoid anymore.